"corpse," 1859, slang, from stiff (adj.) which had been associated with notion of rigor mortis since c.1200. Meaning "working man" first recorded 1930, from earlier genitive sense of "contemptible person" (1882). Slang meaning "something or someone bound to lose" is 1890 (originally of racehorses), from notion of "corpse."

v.

"fail to tip," 1939, originally among restaurant and hotel workers, probably from stiff (n.) in slang sense of "corpse" (corpses don't tip well, either). Extended by 1950 to "cheat."

A working man or woman; a nonclerical and nonprofessional employee; working stiff: Coolidge always seemed unreal to the ordinary stiff(1930+)

A clandestine letter, esp one passed around among prisoners (1889+ Underworld)

A forged check, banknote, etc (1823+ Underworld)

A team, fighter, contestant, etc, that is bound to lose; esp, a race horse that will not, cannot, or is not permitted to win: There is also a rumor that Follow You is a stiff in the race(1890+)

Any failure; flop, turkey: gets a million dollars worth of hype, and I hear it's a stiff(1960s+)

A person who ''stiffs'' a waiter: The maitre d', knowing a stiff when he saw one, shrugged

verb

To cause a horse to lose a race: He admitted that he himself had stiffed horses for a fee(1940s+ Horse racing)

To fail to tip a waiter or other employee: But he was slow about getting our orders, so we stiffed him/ who not only stiffs waiters and cab drivers, but golf caddies as well(1939+)

To cheat, esp out of money, fair wages, etc: The company defends its plan as a business decision and denies it was trying to stiff the women/ which creditors he could stiff, which he could stall, which had to be paid at once(1950+)

To swindle; defraud; scam: Some of the lessons were not as palatable, though, such as the one about a young woman who stiffed him/ In other words, New York City got stiffed(1950+)

To kill; off: Nobody was supposed to stiff a member of the family the way Vinnie had stiffed his niece's boy(1974+)

(also stiff-arm) To treat unfairly and harshly; rebuff or push aside brutally: He had stiffed a Philadelphia charity golf tournament without explanation/ didn't want to stiff him or send him sniffing along false trails/ I'll just stiff-arm them(1973+)

[the underworld senses having to do with forged and clandestine papers, cheating, etc, are derived fr an early 1800s British sense, ''paper, a document,'' probably based on the stiffness of official documents and document paper; the senses having to do with failure, etc, are related to the stiffness of a corpse; the sense of harsh snubbing, etc, is fr the stiff-arm in football, where a player, usually a runner, straightens out his arm and pushes it directly into the face or body of an intending tackler]

The Dictionary of American Slang, Fourth Edition by Barbara Ann Kipfer, PhD. and Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.Copyright (C) 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.Cite This Source